Pluribus's page

The most surprising bit of advice I've gotten is that charisma doesn't need to be high. I mained it because it was my spellcasting stat, but now that I think about it none of the spells I cast on a regular basis actually benefit from it. I suppose some non-combat spells do, but very few of those have ever really been challenged.

As for disarming, with a variety of feats, buffs and so forth I can get up to a +30 CMB or so. But then we fight things like a balor with a CMD of 54. So yeah, it seems that the issue there is that a majority of our fights are single boss monsters.

Sure, you may be saying that expecting to disarm a balor is unreasonable. But when your entire build is based on disarming and it's the first thing you've seen carry a sword in months of play... you'd want to at least try.

I almost did it too. I had a wand of true strike ready, but by the time I was done casting buffs the fight was over.

A net is a nice idea, but given that its effects don't scale it would be less useful the higher level you got, and my character is already lvl 15. Even if I use a mithral net, it's still just going to cause them to be "entangled" and a -2 to AC and attack doesn't mean as much when those stats are crazy high.

TLDR: I'm curious what types of true neutrals are out there. Here's my character, I'd like to hear about yours.

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So, a while back I made a character and have been playing a campaign with him. After I planned out his ideology I was kind of surprised to find that it seemed to fit best under the true neutral alignment. However, from what I've seen on forums like these it seems a rather atypical neutral.

Funny thing is, I didn't know how much the planes would figure into this game. When I told my DM about my character concept we had the following exchange:

"Have you been reading my campaign notes?"
"No... should I have?"
"No, just... Well this should be interesting."

While what follows may not reflect the exact rules-as-written nature of the planes, this is his take on it. In the campaign knowledge of the workings of the planes is generally not deep or widespread. By this point in the campaign the player characters probably know more about the planes than just about any mortal, but we're still learning things. Also, a few things have been changed. For example, instead of three of each there is only one "good" plane and one "evil" plane.

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My character, Pelekko, is campaigning for material plane independence. It ticks him off that other planes keep interfering to try and lure morals to their side of some pointless eternal war. Even sometimes using the material plane as their literal battleground.

So he basically rejects the alignments, seeing them as artificial. He believes that what you see when you cast "detect good" is how much essence of the celestial realm they have allowed into themselves. Upon death a person's soul is "taken" by the realm that has the most of their hooks in that person. It is unclear what happens to the true neutral, but he hopes he will reincarnate within the material plane. If not, he'll find some way to make that happen.

Before the campaign started he was a spy. However, he was basically playing both sides in an effort to prevent a war. Disrupting the war-machine of the enemy while also exaggerating their strength in reports back to his home country. He would rather the mortal nations save their strength to fend off the true threats.

One of the main conflicts in the campaign is that portals or "holes" are opening up which allow the demonic realms to enter the material plane. How would he like to deal with it? Rally the mortal nations for a counter-invasion until the demons decide it's a bad idea to keep those portals open.

He's got some big plans. But is it that much crazier than a hero who hopes to attain godhood?

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Pelekko- "We have spells that can return the recently dead to life do we not? Those spells are taking that soul one plane to another. Is it so unbelievable to think that these planes might be doing the same thing on a larger scale?"
Ally- "That would have to be a very large spell."
Pelekko- "You're right. To maintain something like that you'd probably need hundreds of 'morally' aligned ceremonial structures where acolytes meet once a week or so to chant and perform rituals."
Ally- "Right. And if someone were doing that I think we'd-"
Pelekko "-You're an idiot."

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Pelekko- "Well, here's your chance! Just ask these archons which one remembers being your grandfather."
Ally - "You know they don't remember being mortal."
Pelekko- "That's because they never were... A mortal's soul isn't their steel, it's the fuel in their forge."

In a system like cannon pathfinder, where characters theoretically advance through training and study, it doesn't make sense for them not to be able to plan in advance.

You tell a guy he's got a martial combat based character he might start playing them as a bruiser. Then, surprise! All of his new abilities are things like finesse, mobility, and improved disarm. Why would he have trained in those?

However, if you put a different spin on what a character classes means it might work. Like, say the party got his by a meteor and it gave them superpowers, but they don't know ahead of time what powers will manifest. You could even play against type for this, like the antisocial guy gets powers that summon allies and minions.

I agree with Knight Magenta about how to tell the 'levels' of fighters types. Though the system could get confused if for example a barbarian used a feat to get another rage power instead of their usual progression.

And as Billygoat points out, merchants sure seem to have a system of telling the difference.

Spellcasters would be able to tell their 'level' very easily. Namely, how long can you maintain a spell? "Floating disk" can be maintained for one hour per caster level. It would be blindingly obvious if one wizard could maintain a floating disk an hour longer than another (though in most cases they would probably stick with using something with a minute per level duration). And it would be very easy to make the connection between when you gain more powerful spells and when your spell durations get to a certain length.

"You wish to learn to create explosive ruins? Come to me when you can maintain a floating disk for five hours. You will not be ready before then."

Even if you say that the system is an abstraction and what's 'really' going on is that spell duration increases progressively it would still be obvious enough to serve as a milestone. A weightlifter doesn't spontaneously jump from lifting 100 lbs to lifting 150 lbs, but it would be ridiculous to say that a lifter who maxes at 150 doesn't know if he is stronger than the one who maxes at 100.

So whether a character is observing finite jumps, or significant milestones, it would be quite apparent that that there are twenty 'steps' between uninitiated and master. Or at very worst, one step for each spell level.

This is a little more difficult to apply to non spellcasting classes, but not by too much. Take the barbarian. It would be really obvious if someone has DR 1 or not. And the pattern that barbarians always develop DR 1 after some specific skills and before other specific skills would be easily spotted.

To top it off, there are many spells that cannot effect people above certain HD. "Sleep" cannot effect creatures above 4 HD. Wizards would notice that as soon as a caster can maintain a floating disk for five hours (or "close to five hours" if we're abstracting) they become immune to the sleep spell. Likewise, a barbarian who has mastered the art of fighting multiple opponents (improved uncanny dodge) is also immune to the sleep spell. So one could tell many of the levels simply by seeing when people become completely immune to different spells.

In short, even if you accept the finite increases as an abstraction, there are too many significant milestones in the world to justify people *not* knowing about levels. Sure, they probably wouldn't call them "levels", but they would have some word for it. I'd go with "teir" or something. Maybe each class would have a different term like "belts" or "seasons". However, once they realize that every lifestyle has 20 such tiers it stands to reason that they would have a name for the phenomenon.